For the past few months we have been working in groups to create projects for a organization called Destination Imagination. This organization promotes kids to create incredible projects and use their creativity without the help of adults. The group I was put in was assigned a project called Pace of Change, where we had to build a vehicle with 2 propulsion systems and two methods of movement. On top of that we had to make a skit about change which we would incorporate the vehicle into. At the start we didn’t know how much work was ahead of us and our team procrastinated a lot during the time we had. We were not sure if we would finish the vehicles in time as we had to present this project to people who would mark us on everything about our vehicle.
Our story-
For our story we came up with the story of a boy’s life and built on it from there. We decided on what we thought were the most important parts, the day of birth, first day of school, school and homework, first job, the mother died, graduation, marriage, buying a house and a first child. As you can imagine we would have to buy a lot of props which was very true but we came up with the idea of a chalk board so we could draw each part of the story on it. Also, we had somewhere to store all of our stuff behind it. We spent at least 60% on our props but it was worth it.
Our vehicle-
The main idea of the project was to make a vehicle with 2 propulsion systems and 2 ways of movement. This was very hard as we also had a budget. First we found a base which we got on Craigslist for free( it was an old wooden baby cradle). We took off the legs of the cradle and went from there. Our first propulsion system was an electric motor which worked great and we could count on it during the competition. But our second propulsion system didn’t work as well, it was an winch that we made and it had a 50% chance of working so it wasn’t that dependable. We painted the car red and black and overall it turned out great. Our first movement method was wheels which is pretty simple but it worked so that’s good. Our second movement method was a sled but the weight of the car and the person driving made it so it couldn’t slide.
Competition:
Our first competition was Regionals which went very well except for the fact that our vehicle didn’t work but we still came out with 3rd place which was very good. After the competition everyone was invited to Provincials and our team decided to go as it was a lot of fun! We came in second place in that tournament which was amazing considering our music didn’t work and the vehicle only crossed the line 3 times. We unfortunately didn’t get to go to Globals as only the first place team got to go.
Here is a video from Provincials enjoy:
http://youtu.be/NZEeXTvsEew